from math import asin, atan, cos, radians, sin, sqrt, tan AXIS_A = 6378137.0 AXIS_B = 6356752.314245 RADIUS = 6378137 def haversine_distance(lat1: float, lon1: float, lat2: float, lon2: float) -> float: """ Calculate great circle distance between two points in a sphere, given longitudes and latitudes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haversine_formula We know that the globe is "sort of" spherical, so a path between two points isn't exactly a straight line. We need to account for the Earth's curvature when calculating distance from point A to B. This effect is negligible for small distances but adds up as distance increases. The Haversine method treats the earth as a sphere which allows us to "project" the two points A and B onto the surface of that sphere and approximate the spherical distance between them. Since the Earth is not a perfect sphere, other methods which model the Earth's ellipsoidal nature are more accurate but a quick and modifiable computation like Haversine can be handy for shorter range distances. Args: lat1, lon1: latitude and longitude of coordinate 1 lat2, lon2: latitude and longitude of coordinate 2 Returns: geographical distance between two points in metres >>> from collections import namedtuple >>> point_2d = namedtuple("point_2d", "lat lon") >>> SAN_FRANCISCO = point_2d(37.774856, -122.424227) >>> YOSEMITE = point_2d(37.864742, -119.537521) >>> f"{haversine_distance(*SAN_FRANCISCO, *YOSEMITE):0,.0f} meters" '254,352 meters' """ # CONSTANTS per WGS84 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Geodetic_System # Distance in metres(m) # Equation parameters # Equation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haversine_formula#Formulation flattening = (AXIS_A - AXIS_B) / AXIS_A phi_1 = atan((1 - flattening) * tan(radians(lat1))) phi_2 = atan((1 - flattening) * tan(radians(lat2))) lambda_1 = radians(lon1) lambda_2 = radians(lon2) # Equation sin_sq_phi = sin((phi_2 - phi_1) / 2) sin_sq_lambda = sin((lambda_2 - lambda_1) / 2) # Square both values sin_sq_phi *= sin_sq_phi sin_sq_lambda *= sin_sq_lambda h_value = sqrt(sin_sq_phi + (cos(phi_1) * cos(phi_2) * sin_sq_lambda)) return 2 * RADIUS * asin(h_value) if __name__ == "__main__": import doctest doctest.testmod()